


Journey of a Thousand Miles

by HerbertBest



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Family Dynamics, Friendship, Growing Up Together, Outer Space, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:19:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: Holly always felt out of place on her own planet. The little martian boy knows exactly how she feels.





	1. Chapter 1

She was the first of her kind. Holly heard that often enough when she was training for this mission – the only nine year old bright and brave enough to go on this fact-finding mission to the furthest region of Mars. At least that was what she’d been told before she’d signed on to come and took her shots and, well –after that instance with the vomit comet. She learned only after they’d blasted into the atmosphere that Holly’s purpose on the ship, to her dismay, was to be the Martian dignitary’s son’s friend for a few months. 

The journey – accompanied along by her pappy – had been less than simple. In fact they’d gotten lost for a few months and much of Holly’s memory of the trip involved staring blankly and boredly at asteroids as they traveled by. Space as you traveled through it was exciting; space at a snail’s crawl looked identical to everything around it. 

The space station Alpha Mega, rising arched and golden-white from the rocky Martian ground, was waiting for her when she and Pappy finally disembarked. Holly was relieved to be on firm ground, to have food that tasted less artificial. She slept for the first time in months in a real bed that night and privately proclaimed it a miracle. 

The next morning Pappy told her that she’d been meeting the Martian boy, whom she’d only known as Avidan for months. 

“What’s he going to look like?” She fretted, playing with her noodles as pappy tried to get her to eat. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

Pappy gave her a heart melting grin. “Little love, there’s no way he won’t look at you and fall right in love.”

Holly wasn’t so sure the next morning, after a barely-eaten breakfast with Pappy, when the senators swept her away to meet with the Avidans. Pappy came along, just as he’d promised, and the two of them made a jittery pair as they climbed the navy-colored steps of the Martian senate. 

The architecture wasn’t anything like what Holly was used to back home – there were so many ramparts, so many cornices and bubbles. It looked like the fish tank she kept at home turned inside out and shattered, glittering proudly all around her.

She had no time to adjust to this new strangeness before she was approached by several well-robed figures, in rich shades of purple were their pants, shirts and dresses. One of them seemed feminine, the rest male – and a smaller figure clung to the skirts of that being. They were recognizably human shaped, though their skin seemed iridescent and sparkly under the warm torch lighting of the long hallway. 

They met in the middle, the ambassadors introducing her in soft tones. Holly remembered to bow, and as she rose from it she tilted her head and looked at the figure clinging to the woman. It was a blue haired boy with long curls and a broad nose, and large, brown eyes. He tilted his own in turn at her watching frowning curiously at her. What had she been expecting when Pappy had told her, ‘you’re going to meet a Martian today, Holly”? Certainly not a boy who seemed so human to her. What she got was a pleasant-looking figure who shyly clung to his mother’s white boot-clad leg. Holly kept her gaze even and proud, determined to make a nice impression for the sake of the whole human race.

At last he spoke, in a voice that sounded sandy, high and soft. “Mumma,” and there was a note of wonder in his tone, “do all humans look so _pink_?”

“Leigh, be polite,” said the female Martian. 

She held out her hand. “My name’s Holly.”

The boy took her extended limb and shook it vigorously. “I’m Leigh.” He leaned in closer and added I a stage whisper, “but I _really_ like my middle name better, so call me Dan.”

“Leigh, don’t talk back,” his mother encouraged, gently shoving him toward Holly. She caught him with a huff, easily supporting his tall, skinny body with her strength. His smile was apologetic, and he shyly rubbed a lock of his hair behind his ear.

“Would you like to come to my room? I’ve got a puppy!” he said.

“Martians have puppies?” she said, and instantly felt shame at her confusion.

“Sure…only ‘cause the American ‘bassador gave him to me,” Dan said. “You can play with him as long as you like,” he promised.

Holly smiled, took his outreached hand and followed him toward the play room, leaving the adults to further hash out the business of state affairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young Holly and Little Dan get to know one another.

Holly watched the young alien boy romp about his room. “You can play with Molly if you like,” he said. Holly suspiciously eyed the small dog as he brought it to light; Molly turned out to be a small crested chin dog with a lolling tongue and a big smile. 

She bent and started cautiously scratching under the dog’s chin. She heard Danny bouncing around the room, trying to figure out what to show her first, what they should play with next. 

“Do you know any music?” he asked her.

She had to admit she didn’t.

He grinned before quickly starting to play the rhythm from a tune she couldn’t follow – one that was popular on the planet, she guessed. It was a pretty tune, and she tapped her toes along to the rhythm, dancing along to the beat as he tried to keep the beat up. She laughed and spun around him. 

He took her hand and they danced through the tail end of the song, collapsing in a pile of bright blue cushions.

“You’re really nice,” Danny said. “For an earth girl.”

She thought that a fine assessment as he turned the TV on to watch some cartoons.

In another room, politics were brewing, but here the alien boy and the earthling girl were contented to drift off into a blissful sleep together.


	3. Chapter 3

Holly and the little Martian ambassador’s child became fast friends after that day. Though Holly had to concentrate on her studies, per Pappy’s request, but every weekend they would go to his parent’s house, and every weekend they would play and sing together, and frolic with his puppy. 

Time passed, as it had a way of doing even out in space. Holly soon found herself growing up, and out. Her teachers slowly advanced her through school; all of them impressed by her studiousness, her intelligence, her forthright honesty.

And Dan grew too – in his kindness and sweetness. And in his ability to govern and play music – two things his parents hoped would take him far. 

As Holly and Dan graduated from their teens, they still spent time together. They played music together, and traveled among friendly planets. There was a pinch of dancing and drinking thrown in – much to their parent’s dismay – and a lot of rather controversial little scrapes. They were as thick as thieves, the two of them – the human and her funny alien companion. It seemed that nothing would ever separate the two of them. Their friendship was a bond of glue and gold, keeping them melded firmly together.

Then the stars fell. And life changed for them both forever.


	4. Chapter 4

Commander Holly Conrad managed her fleet with a fair hand, and a heart of steel. Her crew was used to working hard, but also used to being treated like human beings instead of simply members of the Light Brigadiers. She was loyal to them, and they were loyal to her.

Which was why the battle for Rigel was so important to her. Sitting in her chair, eyes fixed firmly on the horizon, she directed the ship’s course, listening to the navigator, to the second in command. 

“It’s so beautiful out there,” Vernon observed quietly.

She smiled. “It is,” she said, “and it’ll be a lot more beautiful once we get rid of this threat.”

“I wish we’d been able to come to a peaceful place,” he sighed.

She shook her head. “There’s no room for peace when you have to fight the worst creatures in the galaxy.”

“I wouldn’t call them the worst,” Vernon flushed. “I mean, they’re not like the Tryphoids I knew when I was a boy.”

Holly patted his head. “You’ll come to see that there are worse horrors. And…even that it’s better up here than you ever imagined it might be.”

Vernon hummed, and then his hand cradled his earpiece. “I’m getting a call from communications. A distress call was just sent out from a small class ship – lightly a destroyer. Should I put it on the viewscreen?”

“Yes,” Holly said. She was wholly unprepared for the face that floated before her. It was thinner than she remembered – grown from the gangly days of his youth, a bit fuller in the chin. In the years since they’d parted, Holly had often wondered how her old friend Dan had fared on the other side of the resistance.

Now she knew too well.

“Captain Conrad,” Dan said. She took him in all at once again – his bushy, ragged blue hair, his torn uniform, his beleaguered looking crew. “Our engines have stalled, and we need a right back to the home station. Can you assist us?”

Holly looked at the young people clustered around Dan – nothing more than babies were they. She wondered how she would have handled such a nightmare at their age.

She wondered how they could bear up even now, as barely-formed adults.

Vernon’s hand tightened against her wrist. “Do you think it’s safe?”

“Only because I know the captain well.” Then she pressed her finger carefully upon the button. “Permission granted. Hello, Dan.”

His smile was roguish, if tired. “Hello, Holly.”

She’d worry about the consequences and her old fears later. Right now she had people to take care of. The galaxy could wait.


	5. Chapter 5

The transport protocol took longer than Holly had anticipated. Vernon stayed nearby as they approached Dan’s ship – a large, hulking blue structure with the traditional red star insignia of the Martial Delta Quadrant. The engines had indeed burned themselves out – black and guttered, they would not take fire anytime soon.

No wonder Dan had called her in distress – had crossed across that burning bridge and dialed her number. She remembered what she’d said the day she’d left the Palace – that she’d left him a keychain with a bluebird made of brightly-painted wood attached to it.

“If you need me, ever,” she told him, rolling the charm over in his palm, “These are the call numbers for my ship.”

Dan had smiled, brightly enough to make his dimples pop. “ The Rigelians are gonna have heavy shields up there. But I know…no, I’m a hundred percent sure I’m gonna find you.”

“It’s going to be dangerous out there. I don’t know if finding me would be the best thing.”

He shook his head. “I’ll always find you, Holly. You’re my north star.”

That had been so utterly romantic, and so out of the blue, that she had stared at him in confusion until he had laughed it off. But those words and that look on his blue face had haunted her through her months of training, the lonely days in space with her crew. To see him here now, to hear his voice and know he was in trouble had broken the sheet of ice that had developed over her heart. 

“Open the holding bay,” she requested. Vernon frowned as he followed her orders. “Tractor beam,” she requested. The hum and golden light of it filled her whole being and made it vibrate, stuck still to the same place. 

When the ship was safe in the cargo bay, she had the beam shut off, the cargo closed and depressurized. They set a course for the latest peaceful star fort, and then she headed down to see Dan with a phalanx of medical staffers.

Dan must have been watching her from her command – the gangplank lowered. Then the injured crew members staggered off, some of them collapsing into the arms of her med team.

Dan was last off. In person, he was the same tall, goofy alien she’d said goodbye to so many weeks ago. But behind his eyes something had changed. Whatever he’d seen out there haunted him.

“Captain Conrad,” he said, bowing. “You honor me.”

“At ease,” she said. “Would you like to come with me to my quarters?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “I guess we don’t have a puppy to smooth our way this time, do we?”

She shook her head. “I want to talk to you in private. I know my second in command is afraid of it – but you’re Dan. Nothing’s ever going to get between us,” she said.

He nodded. “Nothing.” Then his features tightened. A wave of pain seemed to overwhelm him.

“Dan?” The panic in her was painfully clear.

He took one look at her and slid to the floor in a full-bodied faint.


	6. Chapter 6

She carried him to the medbay with her bare hands. Vernon helped he take samples, and realized what bad shape Dan was in. They applied poultices; they gave him fever-reducing medications and pumped him full of antibiotics for his infected wounds, which were cleaned and dosed with antibiotics. Holly worked to keep her heart from bursting, literally. He stabilized, his fever went down, but he didn’t wake up.

Hours passed by, and she didn’t move but to use the faculties and eat. When the midnight hour struck she reached for her communicator. “Vernon,” she said, calling up to the flight deck, “until further notice you’re in charge. Tell me if something shows up on the Pigeon’s radar.”

“All right,” he said. Again, she noticed disapproval in his voice, but this time she didn’t care. Under the pale blue light, she held on to Dan’s hand and stroked the fluid line of his knuckles. 

“If you would wake up,” she said sweetly, “I’ll let you win at the next game we play. I promise.”

That was what made his lids stir, and open. His pale blue skin grew darker in color. His smile was heartbreakingly eager.

“Do you promise?” he asked.


End file.
